


dreamt of in your philosophy

by Calex



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-11
Updated: 2010-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calex/pseuds/Calex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>They sit in the ruined remains of what was once their world - high rise buildings breaking and crumbling around the safe heaven of their kitchen - and he thinks that it's like their relationship, splintered beyond fixing.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	dreamt of in your philosophy

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."  
~ Hamlet, Act I, Scene V  


  
After Ariadne follows Fischer and falls off the impossibly high building after him, Cobb closes his eyes. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe because it hurts, it hurts to take one breath in and release, then another breath - rinse, cycle, repeat. He's battered and bruised and he feels it, feels all the years inside him piling up to overflowing: the years he spent growing up and learning and falling in love with Mal; the years he spent together with Mal crafting dreams and being something close to a superhero; the years (half a century) they spend in Limbo together, hand in hand and deep inside Mal's subconscious barely holding on to the flimsiest thread of sanity and reality. He feels the years after Mal, after they woke up and Mal becomes unconvinced of which is real, which is not; and they're crushing. They're pulling him down and he doesn't get a chance to hold his breath and can feel his lungs filling with an ocean of regrets and pain and hurt and guilt.

He feels a touch to his wrist and he looks down, looks at a face more familiar to him than his own. She's lovely, his Mal. He created her, merely a projection, but she wears Mal's face. She speaks in Mal's voice - and even though he knows she's flawed, that she's _wrong_ and _not real_ , it's hard. It's so hard not to let her drag him down and make him pretend because he aches. He hurts and aches so much from the loss of her, still, even years after the fact. He aches and all he wants to do is to take her in his arms, to bury his face in her hair and bathe himself in her scent. But he doesn't need to, because he remembers it, remembers it so well that it's not just a memory to him. It's a living reality, and Mal's projection is the proof of that, the proof that he's let it go on for too long.

So he puts his hand on Mal's, stilling it, and he prepares himself to say the words again, to call her flawed and wrong and just a shade and not resembling close to the perfection of his dead wife - but he sees her face, first. Sees an understanding not there before, that shouldn't be there and couldn't but _is_ … and he chokes and drops his hand, lets her circle her fingers around his wrist and he feels fragile, like one squeeze from her and his bones will shatter and splinter like glass. She doesn't. She tugs him, and it's gentle, and then she wraps her arms around him and holds him and he doesn't cry. He doesn't, but it comes close because he's so _tired_. He's tired and he wants to give in, but he promised Ariadne. He _promised_. And more than that, he promised _himself_ , and the part of Mal that lives inside him, that'll always live inside him, the part that's still her and real and wouldn't want him to lose himself but to instead make up for her own mistakes and to go back to their children.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and it's so broken. It's jagged and it cuts through the air like a dull, serrated blade and he clutches at her hard enough to bruise. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry - "

"Don't," she murmurs, and it's different, for once. The bright light of madness that was so much a part of this vision of her he has, has disappeared. She's softer, calmer. More like the wife he once knew rather than the stranger he turned her into. "It's okay. It's okay. I forgive you."

"I just wanted to keep you whole," he admits, and her fingers dig into his shoulders. "I just wanted to keep you safe with me, for you to hold on until we could get back."

"I know," she replies, and there's no blame, no censure in her voice. She pulls back just enough so she can cup his face, make him look at her. He does, and he sees that strength that has always been a part of her in her eyes. He sees the understanding, a calm and peaceful sort of serenity. "I know. It's okay, Dom. It's alright, now."

"I don't want to leave you."

"You have to," she says, gently. And he nods, because he knows it's true. They sit in the ruined remains of what was once their world - high rise buildings breaking and crumbling around the safe haven of their kitchen - and he thinks that it's like their relationship, splintered beyond fixing. But she still has his face in her hands, and her nails bite into his skin. It's a sharp pain, and it makes him look at her, makes him _see_ her, and she waits until all of his attention is on her before she leans up to kiss him. It's short, she can't hold herself up for long, and even as his arms go around her waist, she lets out a hiss of pain and her mouth goes slack against his. He keeps his lips to hers, even as he feels the harsh, nearly panting breaths against his face slow… then stop. He kisses her even after he knows that this shade of Mal's is dead. And he holds her because it's hard, so hard to let go even knowing what he needs to do.

He holds her because it's the last time he'll let himself do so.

* * *

He wakes up on their beach, clothes sodden and wet and sand gritty against his face. It's in his mouth, and he tastes it along with salt, and feels the grief flood through his body, lets it saturate him for one bright, blinding moment before reality intrudes. Through his loss he feels the barrel of a gun against his back, lift his shirt and knows what the owner will find - his handgun tucked into the waistband of his trousers. He lets his eyelids flutter back down and lets blackness take him away once more.

* * *

He's dragged through a room that's familiar, and yet wholly _un_ familiar all at once. It's luxurious, all gold and red and oriental perfection and he lets hard hands and blank faces yank him through corridor after corridor, room after room. He notices the man first, the back of his head is snow white, and his strong shoulders and slightly stooped with age. Still, his suit is perfectly tailored and those shoulders fill it, that back is as straight as his age will let it be. He gets shoved onto a seat at the end of the table, and his gun and totem are dropped onto the table in between them. The man is familiar, yet not. He's wrinkled parchment and crumbling marble, an empire on it's dying breath, and the knowledge of that flickers in eyes that are still sharp and all seeing. Fog confuses Cobb's mind, grief tangible on his tongue, but he knows he has a reason for being there. He has a mission he has to fulfill. The details are blurred, but the _idea_ of it nags at him, tugs at a corner of his mind, of his memories.

"Have you come to kill me? I'm waiting for someone."

His voice is shaky with age, slow and deliberate to keep it even, but again it niggles at Cobb's mind. The words, the face, their surroundings. His mind screams at him, a cacophony of noise he can't make sense of, not yet. But there is something there. He knows it. He feels it.

"Someone from a half-remembered dream," he murmurs, and the words feel right on his tongue, like it's meant to be there, like the words were meant to be said. The man looks up, and the surprise clear on his face.

"Cobb…" he says, wonderingly. Then he snorts in disbelief, hope dissipating but the edges of it cling. "Impossible. We were young men together."

"Filled with regret."

"Waiting to die alone."

"I've come back for you," Cobb says, slowly. Thoughtfully. The more he says, the more real it feels, the more true. He's working it out even as his mouth opens and unknown truth spills out. He needs this, needs to work it out. He needs this man in front of him to lead him to what his mind already knows. "To tell you something … something you once knew."

He glances at the table, at the top that spins and spins and hasn't stopped, not once. Not since he was brought in and ate and was talking. It's spinning perfectly in place when logic dictates that it should have stopped, that it should have fallen over by now. But it doesn't. It continues spinning and that could only mean –

"That this world is not real."

"To convince me to honour our arrangement," the man, _Saito_ , acknowledges. Fills in the gaps.

"To take a leap of faith, yes," Cobb says, and the pieces fall together. The memories clear and form a picture he's now, finally, starting to remember. He looks up at Saito, imploring as the need fills him. As images of his children – Phillipa and James, with their beautiful, precious backs turned to him. And he wants to see them, _needs_ to see them and the ache is tangible, the wanting so desperate he nearly chokes on it. He looks Saito in the eye, and he's not afraid to beg, not about this. Not when it's this important. "Come back. So we can be young men together again. Come back with me. Come back."

Saito looks at him, really looks at him. Their silence fill the space between them for a beat, two. Then Saito reaches for the gun.

* * *

He opens his eyes, and he's on the plane. The dream tugs at his mind, already fading even as his body creaks and aches with days, weeks, months, perhaps _years_ that his physical self has not experienced, yet his dream self has experienced more than once. It's difficult to adjust, to remember that those years are fabrications, that in reality mere hours have passed. He forces himself to remember what's real, and the faces of his team helps. The relief in Arthur's rare, bright smile. The absolute and unshakeable belief in Ariadne's. And then the wonder on Saito's as they look at each other, and remember a time they did and did not spend together, alone, the two of them fighting to return to what is really theirs.

Saito reaches for the phone and Cobb lets his eyes close for a brief moment before reality intrudes.

He has never been more glad for it.  



End file.
